Differences Between Having S*x In Movies Vs. Real Life

If you’re sexually active or thinking about becoming sexually active, we hope you don’t look to films for advice. While they’re wildly entertaining, they often say very little about what sex is actually like and set impossible expectations.

Everyone looks perfect, golden and glistening, and the women orgasm two seconds into it because their partners are just that good. Despite this, they appear to have had sex all night. That’s Hollywood movie magic for you.

You’re not supposed to look perfect. Sex is like an active sport so you’re bound to sweat, and you don’t have a crew of stylists and makeup artists to give you a touch up in between (thank goodness). And don’t think anything’s wrong if you can’t have sex standing up, in a pool, on a ladder, or all night (or just don’t want to, because come on, these aren’t very practical).

Below you’ll find some of the most unrealistic sex scenes in films. Don’t get us wrong, many of these are actually great films, just be weary of the sex bits.

#1. Match Point

Outdoor sex, in the brush. Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys Meyers can make anything look good, but all I can think about is how scratchy it must have been. And in the rain? Whoa, there.

#2. Romeo and Juliet

These love young birds were so enthralled in one another that they never came out for air!

#3. Love Actually

Love Actually is one of the greatest modern love films out there, but remember Colin? He’s adorably geeky in some ways, but happened to hook up with three girls during his trip to America, all because of his English accent. Please.

#4. Breaking Dawn

Breaking Dawn should have been called Breaking Bed, because that’s exactly what Edward did during his honeymoon scene with Bella. Unless your furniture is dirt cheap, this probably won’t happen.

#5. Atonement

Atonement had a great costume designer (remember that green dress?), but that’s not why we’re writing about it. We’re talking about this scene.

The characters played by Keira Knightley and James McAvoy sneak off to the library for some secret sex, but it’s never secret if it’s so obvious that the two of you are missing for a small party.

#6. Mr. and Mrs. Smith

We get that you have tension with your enemy and that it can sometimes turn sexual, but this is just way too much. Who better to make it look good than Brangelina?

#7. Heathers

We love this 1988 film starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, but would never want to see a pair of teens go down the same road of Bonnie & Clyde violence.

Their disillusionment with the world is what brought them together, which could’ve been romantic, but it ended tragically.

#8. Pretty Woman

Two of the most famous actors of all time do it on a piano. They make it look good, but can you imagine? I’d probably have backaches for days.

#9. Tiny Furniture

Created by and starring Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture is about Aura, a young woman who is trying to figure out what to do after college. She hooks up with a guy, who has a girlfriend by the way, in this pipe doggy style. And the punchline? Aura still doesn’t know what to do.

#10. Jerry Maguire

Remember when Tom Cruise and Kelly Preston had stand up sex in Jerry Maguire? Well, there are a few technical issues with that.

First of all, to really gain pleasure from this position, the two of

you must have a good height combination, otherwise you’ll just be straining yourself. It’s almost impossible to relax your body this way.

#11. The Notebook

So, he builds you a house with his bare hands and makes you cry before he even touches you. There’s only one man that can do that: Ryan Gosling as Noah Calhoun, a fictional character.

#12. Ghost

Ghost is one of the most iconic films of all time. Doesn’t it make you want to plan some at-home ceramics before getting it on? Didn’t think so.

#13. Splice

Here’s Adrien Brody making out with the newly created Dren creature, who has some of his character’s wife’s DNA as well as some animal DNA. That’s right, she isn’t fully human.

#14. Friends With Benefits

In real life, friends with benefits usually come with only one kind of happy ending. But if you’re Justin Timberlake or Mila Kunis, things just might work out!

#15. Fifty Shades of Grey

Pretty much everything in this movie.

#16. Titanic

Rose’s hand on the window? How many of you have reenacted this on a foggy window? Don’t lie, don’t lie.

#17. Crank

In Crank, Jason Statham’s character must keep his adrenaline up or he’ll die. One way he does that is through public sex with his girlfriend, played by Amy Smart. Pretty crazy if you ask us.

#18. Blue Is the Warmest Color

The film made history when the lead actresses and the director were each given a Palme d’Or at Cannes 2013, and they deserved it.

But while you may have been titillated by the lesbian sex scenes, take a look at what Julie Maroh, author of the graphic novel that the film is based on, wrote about the matter on her blog:

“I don’t know the sources of information for the director and the actresses (who are all straight, unless proven otherwise) and I was never consulted upstream. Maybe there was someone there to awkwardly imitate the possible positions with their hands, and/or to show them some porn of so-called “lesbians” (unfortunately it’s hardly ever actually for a lesbian audience).

Because — except for a few passages — this is all that it brings to my mind: a brutal and surgical display, exuberant and cold, of so-called lesbian sex, which turned into porn, and me feel very ill at ease. Especially when, in the middle of a movie theater, everyone was giggling.

The heteronormative laughed because they don’t understand it and find the scene ridiculous. The gay and queer people laughed because it’s not convincing, and found it ridiculous. And among the only people we didn’t hear giggling were the potential guys too busy feasting their eyes on an incarnation of their fantasies on screen.

I totally get Kechiche’s will to film pleasure. The way he filmed these scenes is to me directly related to another scene, in which several characters talk about the myth of the feminine orgasm, as…mystic and far superior to the masculine one. But here we go, to sacralize once more womanhood in such ways. I find it dangerous.

As a feminist and lesbian spectator, I can not endorse the direction Kechiche took on these matters. But I’m also looking forward to what other women will think about it. This is simply my personal stance.”

#19. 40 Days And 40 Nights

So, Josh Hartnett meets an incredibly gorgeous woman, Shannyn Sossamon, at a local laundromat. He gave up all kinds of sex for Lent, but danced around the rules by seducing his love interest with a flower. Apparently, the petals made her go.